Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You wait around in the claustrophobic interior of Magic For Sale for a good ten minutes, alone with the crammed-full shelves of potions and components and magical knick-knacks. Maybe they got caught up in something? You've been in the back before to help with inventory, so, even though it's not quite time for your shift, you decide it's probably okay to poke your head in and look around.

"Lenta?"

Lenta's desk is vacant, and, as usual, scattered with things, but it doesn't look like they were in the middle of anything pressing. The backroom is even more crowded than the shop itself; you're confident there's nowhere for a dryad to hide here. But that's.... weird. You've been working here for a couple of months, and you've literally never been in the shop at a time when the birch dryad wasn't busy with something; in fact, more often than not, you'd run out to make their trips and errands when they couldn't afford the time.

Your ferrec glances up at you curiously; you bite your lip and turn around, leaving the shop, kith scampering after you. A nine-foot-tall dryad can't be that hard to spot.

---

You don't have to look far.

Around the back of the living tree whose roots make up the walls of Magic For Sale, and amongst its towering neighbours, you find a smaller, paler tree -- the birch dryad Lenta, tapping their blackened branches together in what you've come to understand as a nervous habit, eyes narrowed and scrutinising the larger tree. They step forward, rest a hand against its trunk, and concentrate, like a doctor listening for a pulse.

"Lenta?" you ask, and they start.

"O-OH! Oh, I am- my, my apologies, I did not -- have you been waiting long? I am very sorry, I--"

You hold up your hands with a small smile. "No, it's fine! Just wasn't sure where you were." You glance at the tree -- it looks normal to you -- then back at Lenta. "What's bringing you out here, anyway?" You grin easily. "You don't really leave the shop much."

Their expressions have always been hard to read; a dryad's eyes are the only really expressive part of their face, and the nervous little dart of the lights in their eyes and the uncertain squint don't tell you much. "I, ah -- just tending to the trees a bit. I... am usually out here earlier," they offer, with perhaps the least conviction you've ever heard, before turning back to the shop. "It is good to see you, though you are a bit early. Was there -- rather, do you need anything?"

"Well, I was mostly checking to see if you needed me to run grab anything for you before work." You walk quickly to keep up as they glide evenly over the forest floor with impossibly long strides. "But I was also hoping to pick up a flower for Robin, if you have it! I think she's trying to collect all the ones Hope doesn't have."

You see the smile come back into their eyes. "Of course! I would be happy to check."

---

You convince your ferrec not to jump face first into one of the boxes of flowers, and the two of you take a few moments look through Lenta's frankly impressive (and more organised than it appears) collection for a bit. Oddly, the dryad mostly stands back to let you sort through them -- watching with a fidgety, nervous energy you can't make sense of. As soon as your shift starts, Lenta immediately makes themselves scarce again. "If I could trouble you to watch the front --" they ask, distractedly, and breeze quickly out the doorway without waiting for a response or a conclusion to that thought.

Though they seem a bit.... off, it's not an unusual imposition on you; you've handled customers here before when Lenta was overwhelmed with enchanting orders, and you can certainly restock shelves by yourself.You glance occasionally outside the "windows" in the shop's giant roots and catch glimpses of them, again tending to the trees outside the shop. You think you see magic, but never get a good look.

When Lenta returns an hour or so later, they seem to less out of sorts -- apologising profusely for their rudeness, for leaving you without explanation for so long, and thanking you effusively for your trouble.

"Are... is there something wrong the trees?" you prod, curious about that aforementioned explanation.

"What?"

"The trees you were looking at? I thought I saw some kind of magic. Is everything okay?"

"OH - ah, yes, that, ah. That is, they did not look well," Lenta stammers. "Just some upkeep." You frown, confused.

"Is that usually part of your job?"

Lenta sticks on the first few words of their next sentence, putting thoughts together a bit faster than they can say them. "It is -- I am simply, well, we, ah. We all have a responsibility, to look after the forest," they offer, finally. They are looking past you, somewhere at the lights of mushrooms and magically lit potions over your head. They seem tired.

"They've got you doing too much again!!" you laugh, and the dryad's eyes belatedly smile.

------

------

Bright and early, before light can filter through the leaves to signal that an intangible sun has risen somewhere beyond the tatters, you slip past the folding screen door of Magic For Sale. And... you could swear it's darker than normal inside the tree's cavernous roots -- though all the bioluminescent vines and flowers and mushrooms that normally light the shop still glow dimly. Are they glowing more dimly than usual? You squint at the walls as you step carefully through packed shelves and not-yet-unpacked boxes, before looking over the room and noticing that Lenta is, once again, nowhere to be seen.

".....Hello?" you call.

"In my office!" the accented voice calls back. You frown a little, but walk through to the back room.

This time, Lenta stands behind their desk -- you've begun to suspect dryads don't really understand the concept of "sitting," which you suppose makes sense. Their desk is, as usual, scattered with things, all giving off the slight glow of different sorts of magic, and the birch dryad seems to be in the middle of enchanting several different things at once, which is also expected. But other than that magical glow, it is actually dark in here.

The mushrooms and flowers that normally light the walls are darkened. The shelves and boxes in the back are impossible to see -- just a dim glow on the surface of Lenta's desk that only barely illuminates the dryad's face and hands.

"Uh, what..... what happened?" you try.

Lenta taps their branches against the desk anxiously, something you've seen them do when interrupted and trying to find their place again. "Oh, ah, yes, hello. I," Lenta gestures at the walls. "Headache, ah, I had a bit of a headache, and I, well," -- a small huffed sigh -- "I suppose I did not get as much rest last night as I should have. I, my apologies for the, for the lighting."

"Dryads get headaches?" That's honestly the most surprising part of all this.

"Rarely," Lenta cuts in, too quickly. You decide to drop it, and try to speak a little more quietly.

"I guess that would make today a bad day for magic lessons, huh," you say, with what you hope is an understanding smile. The dryad looks alarmed.

"Oh dear -- is that today?" They jerk away from the desk abruptly, and you feel their leaves rustle over your head as they brush past you, though their figure practically disappears in the darkened room. "I, goodness, forgive me --" they're saying as they move, flustered, "I must have gotten -- ah, lost track of time -- "

"It's okay! We can do it later --"

"That is hardly fair to you!" Lenta exclaims, as if you've asked them to do something unthinkable. "Besides, I am alright. Give me a moment, if you would; I will be right out, and we will begin. I am eager to see your progress."

You grin, a little nervous, and step back out to the front, finding a box to sit on that's mostly out of the way, and pull out the small wand you've been practicing with. You're not casting anything just yet -- the dryad has been very insistent on teaching you the basics first -- but you're learning to focus. You can feel the power in the wand, just a small, neutral spark of magic; feel the faint energy of..... you can pick out healing, in some of the potions on the table nearest you, but the rest are too muddled together to identify specifically. And suddenly, for just a moment, you feel the very strong pulse of another source of magic from the office. What is it..... something quiet, almost like Dream, but it feels brighter --

Lenta ducks through the doorway as they walk into the room.

"Illusion!" you announce, proudly.

The dryad's face does its best approximation of raised eyebrows. "I am sorry?"

"I could feel what you were enchanting in the back! It was illusion magic, right?" You're very pleased with yourself, but Lenta seems to take a moment to fully register this, looking somewhat like they're trying to decide how to react.

The gears tick for just a bit too long before they suddenly break into a small, uncertain smile. "Ah! Yes, I was -- yes. You are correct! That is something many of our young magicians notice -- I often am left with a bit of an 'aura' from my work." They kneel next to you, still managing to be entirely too tall. "You are doing well! Now, let us go over..."

---

Your magic lesson goes pretty well, but it's shorter this morning. Lenta confesses to being very tired, and when you mention that this is obvious even to you, finally concedes to end early and rest a bit before the shop opens. You promise to stop back by after class.

"Feel better!" you call as you turn to the doorway.

Lenta laughs softly, the sound strained. "I will see you!" they reply, having tried very hard to understand the correct implementation of "see ya" in general Hope conversation, and you smile and head out, folding the screen over the doorway behind you.

A very few scattered, broken sunbeams now find their way through the leaves above you, disconnected evidence of a sun rising, somewhere. From here, though, it looks normal -- you can't see the shuddering, purplish slash of unreality that always seems to be devouring most of the sky -- in fact, you can barely even see the Princess' court far above you, hidden within the bright green leaves of the Enchanted Forest's unnaturally long spring. You see hints of bridges above you, and the shadows of other bridges above those. The sheer verticality of this place is dizzying.

You have the rest of the morning to wander and enjoy the sun, but your mind turns instead to those trees, behind the shop -- the ones Lenta was fretting over. Did any of that magic linger? Could you still feel magic that was cast a day ago? ......Probably not, you think, as you step slowly behind the shop anyway; if spells persisted like that, the whole Forest would be nothing but auras.

But as you enter the clearing, pondering the longevity of magical auras, you're suddenly confronted with a jarring colour shift. The trees don't look wilted, exactly, but the full leaves are yellowing on the edges, and in between the veins. All of them, as though the green were being somehow siphoned out of the whole tree. You frown a little and continue walking; every tree you encounter seems to have this problem to some extent, just this slight withering of colour, and only around the perimeter of the shop. After a moment of trying to make some sense of this, you feel your ferrec nose your hand, then trot back towards the shop, sniffing at the ground -- you kneel down, and see smaller flowers at the shop's roots that look as though they've dried out in the sun, leaves yellow and pale. All of the smaller plants around the shop look like this.

"Huh," you say.

Your ferrec sniffs again. "Magic?" he asks.

"I guess so?" You stand and brush yourself off, still frowning, but..... now probably isn't the best time to barge back in with questions about leaf colours. You turn to leave the little perimeter of disturbed trees. "Maybe some enchantment affected the whole area? ...We'll ask them about it sometime when they look less like they're going to topple over," you laugh.

Chapter Text

That opportunity doesn't seem like it's going to come.

Every time you see Lenta, they seem a little more tired, dismissing it as getting caught up in a project the night before, or perhaps having a little too much to do lately -- every time, they add an unconcerned, "Do not worry, I am alright." You do your best to take them at their word, but your ferrec mumbles about this gentle reassurance becoming something closer to a blatant lie. They retreat to their office and storeroom more and more frequently, excusing themselves to customers with a distracted "call if you require assistance," and often hiding there during your shifts. The back rooms are almost always dark.

They still insist upon keeping up the magic lessons with you in the mornings -- it would be irresponsible to teach you the beginnings and then cease guidance, they tell you -- and so with all the requisite "are you SURE"s to the dryad's offer, you continue to faithfully attend.

You keep trying to pick out the magic they're using, too. The second time you notice it, you don't say anything, but the third time you can't help but ask.

"Illusion again?" You smile curiously.

Lenta blinks.

"I'm trying to feel for magical auras! It was illusion, again, like the first time."

A short laugh, though they sound a bit.... uncertain? "You had not-- rather, I did not know you would be continuing to take note of, ah, my enchantments."

"It was illusion last time, too," you add, finding this all very odd.

Lenta squints at you, as though they're unsure what to make of this, trying to read your expression. After a long moment they reply, in an unnervingly even tone, "What a very odd coincidence."

"Oh... sorry..." You awkwardly look down. "I didn't mean to pry into your stuff, I'm sorry," you mumble, and Lenta suddenly holds out a hand to stop you, distressed.

"N-no, that is not --! I do not -- .....please forgive me." They sigh, resting a branch lightly on your shoulder, and looking into your face, serious -- and, you think, unsure. "I did not intend to be evasive; you have not overstepped. In fact you are correct, I have been performing a great deal of illusion enchantments this past week." An oddly long pause. "....That itself is no great secret, per se, though I dislike -- that is, to speak of, well-- I suppose I prefer not to discuss the details of a project whose, ah, outcome is.... uncertain," they finish carefully.

"That... that seems fair to me," you say, with a cautious smile. "I'm... I'm still sorry for snooping, but I can understand that."

Lenta breathes a small, relieved sigh. "I am glad! Please, then, let us continue with the lesson." They're speaking warmly, but the look in their eyes is still shaken and exhausted. Perhaps you're misreading... dryads are very hard to read, after all. "I do not wish to begrudge you the chance to observe and identify magic in use."

You never bring it up again. And oddly, it is never JUST illusion magic again. But you still can't help but notice that whatever other enchantments Lenta might be working on in the morning, one of them is always illusion.

------

------

Clutching a small package of cookies (that's a perfectly acceptable lunch, right?) and a thermos of tea, you peek through the enormous doorway of twisted roots that make up Magic For Sale. Lenta is quietly stocking shelves, no other customers in sight, and you slide inside. Your ferrec bounds in ahead of you, immediately jumping up on top of a shelf to find a sunbeam to curl up in.

"Hello Lenta!" you grin. "We have a day off from class, so I'm here to bother you while you're trying to work!" Lenta notices your kith first, then looks up at the sound of your voice and lights up immediately.

"Ah! Never a bother, truly! I am glad to see you." They smile, but they sound like someone who has just barely survived an exhausting double shift through the lunch and dinner rush. It is 11 in the morning. "In truth, a bit of bothering might be welcome, while I am doing more tedious work."

"Do you want some help? I didn't plan to come in today just because I didn't know I'd have it off."

"Ah, that is alright. It is mostly organising, and I, well --"

"You have A System," you smirk.

"Ahaha, yes." Lenta's "system" does not involve an actual appearance of order or sense or consistent rules of any kind, but since you've never seen them lose anything in this mess, it must work. It does make it terribly difficult to help, though -- you've asked to learn The System before, and they've always dithered a bit before insisting that it would be less trouble to simply do it themselves. At this point you are fairly certain you could've learned The System in the time they've taken explaining why you cannot learn The System.

But you're not going to give them a hard time today. "Fair enough," you say, finding a spot to sit nearby. You lean back against the shelf, unwrap your parcel and dig out a cookie. "Want some?" you ask with a facetious grin, holding it up for Lenta. You know full well what their answer will be.

They hesitate. "I... imagine it is intended for you?" You stare for a second. That is not what you thought their answer would be.

"Wha-?! I mean, no, I mean! If you wanna try some I'd be happy to share it with you!!" You are trying very hard not to trip over yourself in shock. "Heck, if you have a cup I'll pour you some tea, too!"

Lenta considers this, then turns from the shelf, reaching a table across the shop in only a couple of long steps to retrieve a (in their hands, quite small) mug, and returns to set it down on a shelf next to you. "Perhaps a small snack is not a bad idea," they muse, tapping their branches with an uncertain smile. "Thank you."

You, on the other hand, are losing your mind trying to be casual about this. You have attempted to bring them food so many times, and each time their reaction is the same -- to thank you warmly for your thought and consideration, to take a small bite as if to taste, and then to attempt to hide how perplexed they are about what to do with the rest of it. Dryads don't need to eat -- while some do, you're told, Lenta in particular never seemed to quite understand the concept.

You open your thermos and pour Lenta a cup mug of tea. "Where'd you get this?" you ask, trying to idly chat. The mug looks a little beat-up, with a single chip in the top of it, and has the stylised design of a tree on the front.

"Ah, a gift from Dizzy," Lenta explains as you break off half a cookie. You don't want to overwhelm them. "It was -- well, there was something of a surprise inside originally, but. I did keep it anyway." They kneel next to you to accept the tea and half-cookie. You nibble on the other half, watching as they inspect it.

As usual, they take a small sip, and take a moment to taste it, but then, almost curiously, they continue drinking. They slowly tip the mug back and finish all of it, ending with the sudden breath of someone who was very, very thirsty.

You see them look at your surprised face and tense, and suddenly realise that you're staring. "I, uh! didn't know you liked tea...!!" you manage.

"I-I," Lenta stammers, then attempts a nervous laugh. "Do not let-- do not tell Othidar," they blurt out, "I... I may have developed a taste for Hope's........ particular, ah, brand of tea."

You laugh, then lean closer. "Your secret is safe with me!" you say, grinning conspiratorially.

Lenta's nervous laugh fades quickly, and they turn their attention very abruptly to the half-a-sugar-cookie-with-sprinkles. You lean back on your hands and watch the way shafts of sunlight catch dust and pollen in the air, the glinting lights in ten different colours reflecting off of glass potion bottles and dancing lazily on the tree-ringed ceiling, in lieu of staring curiously at your dryad friend. But you do see the small taste they take, out of the corner of your eye, and then see Lenta covering their mouth with a hand as they eat the remaining half-cookie, self-conscious of a process with which they are terribly unfamiliar.

"Do you want some more?" you ask, waiting a moment before turning your attention back to the dryad, trying to sound friendly and unconcerned.

They seem to consider this for a split second. "I do not wish to deprive you of your meal."

"No no, I have too many!" you lie. "Go for it!"

Lenta shakes their head with a small and perhaps knowing smile, and pushes themselves off the ground to stand with a little too much effort. "You, my friend, will benefit -- or, that is, you require these nutrients; you should eat them! While the food I eat will benefit my tree, it is not necessary."

"Cookies don't have many nutrients," you mumble.

"Ahaha! Then they will hardly sustain a tree of this size," Lenta laughs, the sound clear and delicate. "Please, I appreciate the thought, but do not neglect yourself."

You file this comment away for the next time Lenta insists on running your magic lessons despite being obviously overworked, but for now you give in and grab another cookie to munch on while the dryad returns to their organising. "How big is your tree, exactly?"

Lenta blinks. "Pardon me?"

"The tree that you're like.... symbiotic with? I don't think I ever knew which one was yours."

"Oh!" they exclaim, surprised. "You have certainly seen it. It is this one!"

"This...? Wait, like................. wait really?" You stare. HOW DID YOU NOT? KNOW THIS???

"Why would I make my home in another dryad's tree?" Lenta asks, matter-of-factly.

You look around, stunned, at the enormous roots that surround you. A plate of cookies would definitely not sustain this tree. "I... guess I didn't think about it...." you say. "and I was.... shoot, is it rude to say that I was thinking you would, um....... I thought dryads would like.... match their trees?"

They take a moment to parse this. "Ah! I am a birch, and my tree is not?"

"Yeah! I was looking for a tree that looked like you."

There is a small sigh that you suspect Lenta isn't aware they're making. "That was once the case, a long time ago," they say, gathering several potions that do not conform to each other by any metric that you can see. "I am grafted, in fact. I, ah, "match" the tree I first grew from, in a manner of speaking."

"Whoa, really? I didn't even know that was a thing you could do!" you exclaim. "Why didn't you ever mention it?"

"Well, I -- do not, ah, that is, you should not fret over having suggested -- well, the topic, is a bit, ah, sensitive, though I do not wish you to feel you have overstepped -" they set their potions down and turn to you, "--I do not mean to imply it was rude to ask, of course!"

"No, no, you're fine! I follow!"

Lenta nods, grateful. "-- but my first tree fell ill, only a bit before this tree lost its dryad. My, that is, the grafting was an effort to save us both. It is not the sort of thing one mentions, or, volunteers, in casual conversation," they add, almost apologetically.

"Oh, wow.... I'm sorry. That makes sense, though," you say, even though in actuality your mind is shooting off in ten directions and you want clarification on literally every point. "What happened to your first,.... um, is it okay to ask? what illn--"

Lenta raises a hand to stop you. You look up and follow the dryad's gaze, glancing over at a small elf woman browsing the shelves.

"Ah, my apologies, I do not mean --excuse me for a moment." They glide past you; their long, even steps carry them quickly over to the other side of the shop. You hear the usual "ask if you need assistance" and then start to make out a much more in-depth conversation about the specific properties of tears and sighs and in what contexts those objects hold the most power.

You sip your tea and think about all this. How long can a tree go without a dryad? How long can a dryad go without a tree? What sort of disease could a tree "fall ill" from? How does grafting a dryad even work? Is that term metaphorical, or was Lenta actually sliced off of a birch tree before they were done growing and, just, literally taped to this giant oak??? Are dryads even emotionally attached to their "birth tree?" How long ago is "a long time ago?" Which of these questions might be the LEAST weird to ask?

But when the woman leaves the shop and Lenta returns to their sorting, they have a lot of things to say about the specific properties of tears and their context, and dryad grafting conspicuously never comes up again.

You stay for the rest of the day -- bothering Othidar briefly, both for dinner and for covertly purchasing a new scale for Lenta (they mutter something about not wanting to worry him over how quickly they're burning through equipment) -- and spend most of the time chattering about magic with Lenta to keep them engaged and awake while they work.

When they fold the screen over the door of the shop, finally closing for the day, they approach you with a tired smile. "You a treasure, truly. I do not know if I could have managed all this without your assistance."

"Well, if you need anyone to talk your ear off again, you know who to call!" you say, noticing that you're being very gently herded towards the exit. Lenta looks at you quizzically.

"I assume this is an idiom," they say, with the slow, uncertain smile of someone aware they're missing a joke, "but I will have to ask about it later. Forgive me, but I am..... quite ready to rest, for once."

"Thank goodness!" you laugh. "Anyway, I hope you rest well! I'll see you soon -- we decided I'd come in tomorrow for a shift, right?"

They brighten. "Ah, yes, that is right! Tomorrow morning! I will see you then."

"See ya!!"

---

You step out, slipping past the folding screen, and see your ferrec not too far away, pouncing through the flowers.

"Hey!" he barks, noticing you, "Come look at this!" and bounds past you behind the shop. You smile and follow, pausing just a moment to look all the way up the trunk of the tree -- Lenta's tree -- and try once again to wrap your head around the idea that this towering oak is the one they keep talking about.

You catch up with your kith sniffing at the flowers in the clearing behind the shop. "Look!" he exclaims. "The flowers are back!"

"Oh hey!" You hadn't even thought about it. You look around at the trees that surround you -- a few yellowed leaves seem to have fallen from earlier, but for the most part the trees look healthy and green again. You watch your ferrec sniff through the flowers that now blanket the ground -- there are some closest to the tree that are still withered and brown, but enough new flowers have grown up that it's honestly barely noticeab--

You stop short.

There are a few roots of the giant tree that sprawl out above ground for a bit before diving back into the dirt. That seems fairly normal, as far as trees go. But what seems less normal is the large, clean gash -- a perfectly even cut through the entire root, a little ways out, before it gets close to the other trees. You reach down, running your hand over the cut. Was this an accident? It's so clean though.... Was it magic? Your ferrec notices you staring and trots over.

"Whoa.... what is it?"

"...I don't know."

"Is this pruning?"

"....I don't think you prune roots," you mumble, having no idea whether or not you prune roots. You tiptoe around the rest of the tree, and though most of its roots are underground where you can't see them, you do find one other, similarly cut -- a ways away from the tree, but before it could reach outside the clearing. Maybe you do prune roots, you think. You don't know anything about tree care. This is probably fine. You concentrate, feeling for magic, curious if you can detect any spells that might've been involved -- but the magic was cast hours or days ago. It's long past.

But as you focus, you suddenly feel something else.

Such a powerful pulse of illusion magic that you wince away from the source -- somewhere within Magic For Sale -- shoots as far as you're able to make out up the whole of the tree before dissipating from your senses. You look up, alarmed, and just barely catch the smallest hint of a visual glitch -- the leaves of Lenta's tree, those closest to you, seem to shimmer, for only a fraction of a moment. Then the magic is gone, and the tree is normal again. Nothing seems changed. Your ferrec watches you curiously; your mind is already suggesting that you might've imagined the whole thing, and you firmly ask your mind to please keep its opinions to itself. You are one hundred percent certain you felt something.

"I just... felt illusion magic," you whisper, wondering if you should even say it out loud. "The tree looked....off for a second."

The ferrec looks horrified. "...off... how?"

"I thought the leaves changed colour," you say, still staring up into the canopy. "....for a second, they looked ...almost white."